Posted on 03/09/2015 6:38:15 AM PDT by mn-bush-man
Headline Only at this point
What was the lower court ruling?
This story is developing. Please check back for further updates.
The U.S. Supreme Court has thrown out an appeals court decision on Obamacare’s contraception mandate that had favored the White House.
Didn’t lower court favor Hobby Lobby ? So this is a reversal ???
I really don’t know but knowing what that ruling was is pretty integral to us understanding what this SC ruling means, doesn’t it?
I’m sure they’re conflating “contraception” with “abortion”.
It is absolutely abhorrent that laws exist requiring people to pay for others to kill babies.
What does this mean?
Bookmark for later.
Reversal of Notre Dame v. Burwell, Sec. of H&H Services in light of Hobby Lobby ruling - remanded to 7th Circuit Court of Appeals for further consideration.
Still looking or details of the case.
for later
About the underlying case:
The University of Notre Dame is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate a Seventh Circuit decision that blocked its religious opposition to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate, arguing that it would have succeeded under the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision.
The Seventh Circuit in February rejected Notre Dame’s request for an injunction allowing it to stop paying for birth control under health plans for students and employees without filling out an exemption form and notifying its insurer and third-party administrator. The court ruled that filling out the two-page exemption form was not a substantial burden to the school’s Catholic beliefs.
Notre Dame’s petition filed Friday, however, argues that the appeals court’s substantial burden analysis conflicts with the high court’s June holding in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., which allows closely held for-profit corporations to avoid the ACA’s contraception mandate. Under Hobby Lobby, courts need to assess the consequences for religious groups’ noncompliance, in this case a pressure to violate religious beliefs in order to avoid a fine, according to the petition.
“There is no independent requirement that the act in question involve substantial physical exertion,” it said. “The reason for this approach is obvious: what may seem like an administrative burden to a court may mean much more to a believer. Courts have no competence to determine whether a particular action violates a plaintiff’s religious beliefs.”
Notre Dame’s petition asked the Supreme Court to vacate the Seventh Circuit’s injunction denial and remand the case for further consideration under Hobby Lobby and the high court’s emergency injunction grant to Wheaton College.
The university added that under Hobby Lobby, it was up to plaintiffs to decide whether an act is connected to illicit conduct, contrary to the Seventh Circuit’s ruling that the exemption form allowed Notre Dame to “wash its hands” of involvement with contraception.
The contraception mandate “put Notre Dame to the exact choice that was put to the plaintiffs in Hobby Lobby,” Notre Dame said. “Just as in Hobby Lobby, Notre Dame believes that if it complies with the regulations, it will be facilitating immoral conduct in religious beliefs.”
The Seventh Circuit’s February decision held that signing the exemption form is not a trigger for administrator Meritain Health Inc. to provide contraceptive care. The ACA creates a federal right to contraception for women, and even if Notre Dame were penalized because it did not sign the form, Meritain would still need to cover the university’s employees and students, the panel wrote.
Notre Dame argued that even with the government’s accommodation designed to shift responsibility for contraception coverage to others, the mandate still places a substantial burden on the exercise of the university’s religion under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Even sending in the exemption form — if the consequences are that the contraceptives are provided by others — violates the faith, the university claimed.
Following the Hobby Lobby decision, the Obama administration revised its contraception mandate policies, allowing religious nonprofits to notify the government of their religious objections, and the government would notify insurers. That was the alternative process laid out by the Supreme Court in July when five justices granted Wheaton College’s emergency injunction, temporarily freeing it from complying with the insurer-notification process.
Notre Dame argued on Friday that even with the new policies, it was still required to give the government detailed information about its health plans, which would eventually trigger contraception coverage for its students and employees.
“Notre Dame continues to challenge the federal mandate as an infringement on our fundamental right to the free exercise of our Catholic faith,” spokesman Paul J. Browne said in a statement.
Attorneys for three Notre Dame students who intervened in the case declined to comment. The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment.
Notre Dame is represented by Matthew A. Kairis and Noel J. Francisco of Jones Day.
The Department of Health and Human Services is represented by Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr.
The intervenors are represented by Ayesha Khan of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
The case is University of Notre Dame v. Sylvia Burwell et al., case number 14-392, in the U.S. Supreme Court.
http://www.law360.com/articles/585084/notre-dame-takes-contraception-mandate-fight-to-high-court
“Court is vacated and remanded for further consideration of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which is what university had asked for.”
See more at: http://live.scotusblog.com/Event/Live_blog_of_orders_and_opinions__March_9_2015#sthash.ud8wLIcd.dpuf
Awesome news. SCOTUS in essence says that Notre Dame should receive the same religious freedom protection as SCOTUS extended to Hobby Lobby.
The Supreme Court on Monday threw out an appeals court decision that went against the University of Notre Dame over its religious objection to the Obamacare health law's contraception requirement.
I *think* this was a ruling from a 3 judge panel of the D.C. Circuit, from November of 2014.
“(The 3 judge panel) upheld a path devised by the Obama administration that allows religious nonprofit groups to avoid paying for contraception under the president’s health care law.
“In a 3-0 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a challenge by the groups, which claimed that the accommodation still imposes a substantial burden on their expression of religion.”
The 3 appeals judges were:
Cornelia Pillard, nominated by Obama.
Robert Wilkins, nominated by Obama.
Judith Rogers, nominated by Clinton.
The D.C. Circuit has 8 Democrat nominated and 10 Republican nominated, total 18.
Don’t you just love the protesters’ signs that say contraception is not their bosses’ business while at the same time they want their bosses to pay for it?
(Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday threw out an appeals court decision that went against the University of Notre Dame over its religious objection to the Obamacare health law’s contraception requirement.
The justices asked the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision in favor of the Obama administration in light of the June 2014 Supreme Court ruling that allowed closely held corporations to seek exemptions from the provision.
Will be waiting for more information. But I have a deep queasy feeling that the Supreme Court has sided with Obama on this, and thus, signals its intention to side with him on the state subsidies issue before it.
In this respect, it really would be the final nail in the coffin of an open, honest, and honorable Supreme Court devoid of bias and a deep, abiding reverence for our Constitution. It is the functional equivalent of it falling prostrate before the Devil.
Right on - this is a great ruling in that the Court is still willing to recognize religious objections and extend protections to them... for now anyway. We’ll see how they treat other crucial cases coming before them.
Law360 — The U.S. Supreme Court remanded to the Seventh Circuit another challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage mandate concerning a University of Notre Dame petition appealing the Seventh Circuit’s ruling on the mandate.
Monday’s decision by the nation’s highest court to grant cert asks the Seventh Circuit to reconsider its February 2014 opinion that requiring the Catholic university to fill out a waiver exempting it from providing contraception to its students and employees was not a substantial burden on its religious rights.
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